The World Trade Organisation (WTO) on 27 February adopted an agreement on domestic services regulation (new disciplines on services domestic regulation).
Key points
- It aims to lower trade costs to the tune of about $150 billion per year. The services domestic regulation agreement entered into force at the 13th Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi.
- As many as 72 countries, including major economies such as the United States (US), Canada, Japan, China, United Kingdom, and Switzerland are part of the plurilateral agreement. India, however, is not a part of the agreement and has been opposing the plurilateral pact.
- India, in principle, has been against plurilateral pacts on platforms such as the WTO as it believes that it may dilute its multilateral trade framework.
- It also has the first-ever commitment in a WTO agreement to ensure discrimination between men and women when they seek permits to supply services.
- The new agreement aims to mitigate the unintended trade-restrictive effects of measures relating to licensing requirements and procedures, qualification requirements and procedures, and technical standards.
- These regulations, which apply on a Most Favored Nation (MFN) basis, aim to make authorization processes more transparent and accessible, with commitments to gender equality.
- However, only 72 out of the WTO’s 164 members are a party to the agreement. The regulations are a response to the bureaucratic challenges faced by businesses in cross-border service trade, aiming to simplify procedures and promote equal opportunities for service suppliers world- wide.
